Thin Ice
by KittyDaydreamer
Summary: Being cold doesn't make her heartless; ice is easy to shatter, but even shattered ice can still melt. Takes place two days after Clouded Sunshine.


Disclaimer: I do not own Sailor Moon, it belongs to Naoko Takeuchi and Toei. I do not profit from this story

Warnings: Angst, death, the usual stuff.

This is part of the Lonely Fire universe, as usual.

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Thin Ice

tap-tap tap-tap tap.

Ami's fingers deftly dance across her keyboard, displaying the agitation she hides behind a stony face. The words of the paper take their orderly place on the screen.

Tap tap-tap click

She won't think about it. She won't hypothesize its meaning. She doesn't want it to happen again. Trying the same thing again leads to the same result. She tries to keep her mind robotic, but it plays with the image of the stone on the table. In her mind, the stone is a different color. Kunzite becomes Zoisite. Ami refuses to think.

Tap tap tap click! Press print, walk one meter to the printer, remove the sheets of paper. Place the sheets under the stapler. Press down.

Click

Easy. Walk back to the desk.

Tap tap-tap tap tap

click!

Keep your mind on your work.

"It's good that Okaa-san is away at a doctor's convention."

"Talking to yourself, never a good, sign, Mercury."

Ami slams her hands down on her desk. She stands abruptly, knocking her chair back, nothing like her usual calm and controlled movements. She walks briskly to her room, glaring at the floor, throws open the door, and dives onto her bed. She places a pillow over her head and screams. There is no one to hear her.

"Even when utterly alone, you still can't let loose. Why is that, Mercury?"

Tears of fear and frustration swim in Ami's eyes. That voice in her head won't leave her alone. The voice that speaks fractions of memories she knows she does not wish to remember. She wishes she were a thoughtless stone. The memories are trying to bubble up, like a body in mud. She doesn't want to remember. She's already figured out enough to know that the memories will only bring heartache. Minako's break-down was the last straw. She had suspicions, but when Mamoru brought that stone, Kunzite out to Minako, **that** was when she _knew_.

Ami craves a distraction, like a drowning woman craves air. Her eyes desperately scan her room, and they land on the unopened package from her father that arrived that morning. Internally she lit up; "A package from Otou-san! It's not difficult to ascertain what it is." A painting! Clutching the package like a life-ring, she tears open the box.

"I don't want to remember. I don't want to remember." She says aloud like a mantra, she's been doing it the last two days, ever since she saw the stone. A note falls from the package and onto the floor, at the sight of the painting, it is forgotten. Ami is transfixed with horror and sorrow at the scene the painting depicts: a lush forest, at the edge of a deep, sparkling lake. Standing on the water is a woman with long, wave-like blue hair. On the ground before the lake, on his knees, is a handsome young knight with striking green eyes and long, wavy, wheat-colored hair falling over his shoulder in a pony-tail. The knight looks at the Lady of the Lake in askance, the Lady looks at him with sorrow and repressed longing.

Ami stumbles, and the memories she had been trying to avoid flood her mind in a confusing non-linear fashion, probably to gall her. The intense focus of her mind was the only thing that kept her grounded in the present. She regains her memories, but she is not overcome by them.

The planet Mercury was devoted to knowledge, making it ironic that she no longer knew her own name. For as long as she could remember, everyone had called her Princess Mercury, and later, Sailor Mercury.

Her first memory was the joy on her parent's faces when the tutors told them that she had above average intelligence, even for a Mercurian. Her mother's blue eyes were alight with pride, and her father wore a proud smile. She was glad she could make them happy. Her hair had been long then, and she could still remember what it felt like to run her fingers through it. After she joined the advanced program, she cut her hair shorter, so it would require less care. It was the logical thing to do, she would never admit that sometimes she missed running her fingers through her long hair.

For a few years, everything was fine. She excelled in her advanced classes and her classmates treated her as an equal, not a princess. She had her first crush at age eleven. His name was Mercurius ; one of her classmates, and he was the handsome son of a pair of Mercurian dignitaries. The memory reminds Ami of her rival in test rankings. Mercurius had been his pseudonym she had believed he was an enemy and that she defeated him, but one day she happened to meet him at a convention, and learned he was an average nerdy guy, just like Umino. She thought he might have been attractive if not for his thick glasses. No one wore glasses on Mercury; if someone was born with imperfect vision, it was corrected in their early childhood. The memories flow on, interrupting her musings. Things changed the year she turned twelve. That was the year the former Sailor Mercury died. She didn't know it at the time, but she was the next Sailor Mercury. The royals thought that her cousin, another Princess Mercury, would become the next senshi of their planet. They waited and waited for some sign of senshi powers. It always took longer for a Mercurian to become a senshi, and for all their research, they could never determine why. Privately, Sailor Mercury thought it was the result of the Mercurian's focus on mind over body. No one wanted to be the next senshi, and by force of will they would deny it for as long as possible.

Princess Mercury had begun to notice something strange. She could sense the water in the world around her. She knew what it must have meant, but she was in denial. One day, the power would not be restrained any longer. She was just... handing a tool to Mercurius and when their hands touched, all the power she was holding in had rushed out all at once. Faster than should have been possible, he was frozen solid.

"I... I didn't mean it. I... what happened... what...?" Princess Mercury looked down at her hands in horror. Her classmates and teachers looked at her with terror. They were all afraid to go near her, and she sat down under a desk in the corner and cried.

It was all confused after that, and the next thing she remembered, with painful clarity, was the looks on her parents faces when the scientist examining her told them that not only was she Sailor Mercury, she was also the most powerful Sailor Mercury in their millions of years of history. She could manipulate water in all its states, no matter its location. That was the first time she saw her mother cry. Her mother wouldn't go near her, and when she reached out for a hug, the queen flinched. Her father wouldn't even look at her. Everyone avoided her after that, and she finished her Mercurian education in solitude, under a computer's guidance. She learned that a Martian priestess teleported in to thaw Mercurius, and she was able to do so only because it was a solid freeze. He awoke with no permanent damage to his mind or body, the scientists believed it was because he was frozen by magic. She didn't care why he was okay, only that he was. She wanted to see him, to apologize, but she never got to see him again.

Her education complete, on her thirteenth birthday, the day her aging slowed, Sailor Mercury was sent to live on the moon. There was a huge ceremony to celebrate the one who would bring honor to them and protect the Queen and her future princess. Sailor Mercury could tell that the joviality was forced. Her mother and father acted like she was a stranger. Her heart turned to shattered ice that day. When she arrived at the Moon Palace, the Queen greeted her, pregnant with the Princess it would become Mercury's duty to protect. Sailor Mercury was the first of the next generation senshi to arrive. Her predecessor was the first of the previous generation to die. The next was Sailor Venus, then Sailor Mars, and last was Sailor Jupiter. Sailor Mercury's coldness deterred her fellow senshi from trying to befriend her. Throughout their system rumors had spread about what she did, and some claimed that she had done it out of cruelty. She did nothing to deny or confirm the rumors, and while the Queen defended her, gossip is not easily stomped out. The rumors persisted for the rest of her life. She had only been eleven, and one mistake marked her for life. She'd forgotten what it was like to touch another human being. She couldn't keep her power from flowing out and freezing others if they made skin to skin contact. Sailor Mercury avoided everyone, she was afraid of accidentally freezing someone again. She was utterly alone in a group of people, and she knew it was her own fault. Her world was cold, trapped in a seemingly endless winter, always afraid that today would be the day that she slipped up and froze someone. The one that saved her from that life of loneliness was Princess Serenity. From birth, the Princess Serenity was a curious thing, and the more Sailor Mercury avoided her touch, the more determined she became to touch her. She reminded Sailor Mercury of the proverbial cat; luckily in her case the proverb did not apply.

One day, Serenity succeeded in touching Sailor Mercury. Mercury was practicing her powers in the garden of fountains, and was intently focused on manipulating the water, shaping it and freezing it into sharp spikes. She had developed a sixth sense for when Serenity was up to one of her tricks, and she knew that Serenity was approaching her. Serenity knew that Sailor Mercury knew she was there, and didn't try anything. Serenity went off to play in the hedge maze behind the fountain garden. Sailor Mercury could still sense her, but she got used to Serenity's presence, and was not expecting Serenity to teleport behind her and give her a hug. Sailor Mercury hadn't known that Serenity knew how to teleport. Little Serenity gave Sailor Mercury her first hug in decades. Sailor Mercury felt her power rush out to Serenity, but when it reached her, she didn't freeze. Serenity absorbed her power. Sailor Mercury felt such relief that she cried, another first. The wise beyond her years Serenity didn't say anything, and just kept hugging her.

From that day on, Sailor Mercury allowed Serenity to touch her whenever she wished. Mercury no longer feared hurting her, and found that she had made a friend. Things only got better after that. Seeing that Serenity could absorb her power, the other senshi tried to touch her as well, and they found that they too absorbed her power. They spent more time with her, and one morning Sailor Mercury woke up and realized that they had become her family. After that, Sailor Mercury became more optimistic and with innumerable months of practice, she learned how to restrain her power. She could restrain it long enough to pet Luna or shake hands with dignitaries, but she could not do it indefinitely. Serenity and the senshi were the most special people in her heart. That is, until she fell in love with Zoisite.

Ami lays down on her bed, puts the pillow over head again, and screams. Zoisite. She doesn't want to remember. She doesn't want to remember, but the memories are returning anyway.

At first sight, she actually hated Zoisite. _He_ was the brains of the shitennou! He acted like a fatuous playboy, flirting with all the pretty women in the room. He danced with as many women as he could get his arms around. His hair was too long to be practical, and he didn't even have it pulled back properly; wispy tendrils of it still floated around his face. When he smiled crookedly at her and confidently asked her to dance; like he believed without a doubt she would say yes, She turned him down cold. He took the rejection so well that it denied her the pleasure of seeing him humbled. What she didn't know then was that her refusal made him determined to win her over. Ami still blushes at the thought. He was always too smooth for his own good.

Zoisite was quick to realize that Sailor Mercury could not be wooed through ordinary means. He chipped away at her armor slowly, finding her in one of the libraries, or out playing with her powers in the fountain garden. He did this every time The shitennou and Prince Endymion visited the moon for diplomacy talks. Sailor Mercury grew used to his presence in the library, and the books that he read showed her that he was more than just a stupid playboy. At the fountains he would observe her using her powers, and once she was no longer offended by the sound of his voice, he would hypothesize about the nature of her powers, and what she might be able to do with them.

One day, after several months of visits and conversations, he hypothesized that with her control of water, she could manipulate the water inside a living being. With her voice as cold as ice, Sailor Mercury told him what her touch could do to a person. He was speechless. She tried to walk away, sure that he would think her a monster now that her knew, but he grabbed her arm. She was not prepared for that. She felt her power surge towards him. It hit a wall. A power different from hers, trying to surge towards her. She found that she was able to push her power at the force; something she lacked the words to describe, like moving a limb. The force pushed back. Zoisite told her that he and the other shitennou could manipulate minerals the way she could manipulate water. Of the shitennou, Zoisite was by far the strongest. He, like Mercury, had to be careful because he could crystallize a person with a touch. Mercury melted into his embrace, waves of relief flooding her. Here was someone who truly understood what she had gone through. He seemed equally affected by the revelation that she understood; that they could touch one another. In broken sentences, he told her about when he was five and his powers as a shitennou manifested. He accidentally crystallized his mother. The other, older shitennou tried to reverse it, but they were not as powerful as he, and they concluded that she was dead. So his immortal, crystallized mother served as a warning of the power of the shitennou. Zoisite threw himself into books, trying to find a way to control his power; to undo what he had done. He only ever managed to learn how to restrain the power; and that he could only do for five minutes at most. Mercury, Endymion, and the other shitennou were the only ones he could safely touch. Mercury and Zoisite had theorized that he may have been able to touch the other senshi, but the tests they ran proved otherwise. They lacked the ability to push back against his power that way that Mercury could. Zoisite and Mercury grew into a relationship like the plants in Jupiter's greenhouse. They were a couple by the time Jadeite and Mars accidentally confessed to one another in the midst of an argument. Only the Queen, Princess Serenity, Endymion, the shitennou, and the senshi knew about the relationships between the senshi and shitennou. They worked to keep it that way.

Ami remembers that best day she ever spent with Zoisite; They met in one of the libraries, away from prying eyes. It was her birthday, and Zoisite gave her a beautiful crystallized red rose. It made her wonder if someone had told him about her pollen allergy. The crystal rose was thorn less, but the end of the stem was sharp. Zoisite said it was a good luck charm, and that it could be used for self-defense. The look in his eyes as he said that haunted Mercury; it was as though he was trying to tell her something, something gravely important. In her bed, wrapped in her blankets; Ami shivers. She knows the worst memory is to come. She is overwhelmed, and sees it all through Mercury's eyes, like she was living through it again.

A few weeks ago, all contact with Earth was lost. The senshi could no longer sense the shitennou. They were all silently, secretly devastated. The senshi were assigned to guard the palace, while inside, the foolish nobles held a ball. Mercury was stationed at the back entrance to the palace, Mars to the front. Jupiter was on the roof, watching for enemies to strike with lightning, and Venus watched over Princess Serenity. Mercury felt peculiar that evening, she sensed something fatal in the air, something signaling an end. She was not her usual rational, rule-abiding self. She allowed Endymion to enter through the back gate. She sensed that he meant no harm. Normally she would not act on a feeling, but that night, her emotions were raw, agitated waves attacking the surface of her usually calm, frozen, mind.

Late into the night, She feels Sailor Mars fall. That was when the screams began and the scent of blood and flames drenched the air. Then she sees Him. Zoisite, leading a battalion of monsters. His eyes are blank, and when he gets close enough to see her face there is no affection, no sign of recognition, no life. She knows it isn't him, not anymore. He approaches her like a stranger, and the battle begins. He grabs her arm, and they stare at each other in silence, completely still. The world around them seems to stop. She could feel his power surge towards her, trying to crystallize her. It starts out weak, to test her strength, and she uses the bare minimum of power necessary to keep him out. The monster wearing Zoisite's skin smirks. In her bed, Ami shudders.

Zoisite uses more power, expecting to smash her seemingly frail defenses. He's caught off guard when his attack slides off of her like she's ice. Zoisite's face twitches with irritation, and she goes on the offensive. She tries to freeze the monster that was once Zoisite, he fights back but sweat drips down its forehead. Then he smirks triumphantly and Mercury is terrified; he's found a chink in her armor. Mercury's feet begin to crystallize. It's pure agony, but she refuses to let it see her pain. Still, her breath comes a bit harsher, faster. Mercury finds a hole in its defenses, and floods it with her power. His hand is frozen in place, in contact with her arm. It seems surprised, and Mercury briefly wonders why but the monster takes advantage of her lapse in concentration and crystallizes her legs. This time, she can't hold back the scream. In anger, instinctive and fear-fueled; she lashes out and freezes the monster's arm and shoulder. The monster doesn't react, and touches her with his free hand, sending a shock wave of power though her. Her pelvis is crystallized. She grits her teeth and pushes back against him. His legs and feet are frozen solid. The monster howls. It becomes a race to who can immobile the other first. His battalion has already rushed into the palace. Mercury is ashamed; she has failed the people and her princess. Each second brings her closer to complete crystallization. With her non-crystallized arm, the only part of her that she could still move, Sailor Mercury makes her last stand. She finds the crystallized rose Zoisite had given her, worn at her waist as a good luck charm, and she thrusts it into where its heart should be. The distraction gives Mercury the upper hand she needs, and with the last of the water in the air and the monster's body, she creates a crystal shard inside its chest, stabbing it from the inside. Mercury's arm is crystallized and as the monster dies it forms a layer of crystal on her head and face. The monster that used to be Zoisite is frozen solid and dead, and She slowly suffocates under the crystal that has covered her face and paralyzed her lungs.

Ami gasps for air, the tears that Mercury refused to shed run down her face. She can still feel what it was like to be crystallized. In her mind's eye, she can see the picture her crystallized body and Zoisite's frozen body made outside the moon palace. It was a scene of beautiful horror, one Ami would do anything to avoid creating again. Collecting herself, Ami picks up the note that fell on the floor.

Dear Ami-chan

The image this painting depicts came to me in a dream. I've been staying a resort near some lovely hot-springs, and their most significant local legend is that of The Lady of the Lake and her doomed lover. They say the man had to decide between his duty and the Lady of the Lake, for it was his job to collect and destroy supernatural beings. He had fallen in love with the Lady of the Lake and was unwilling to drag her out and kill her. She would have given herself up for his sake, but he would not let her. He would be executed for sparing her, but he would rather die than harm her, so he begged the Lady of the Lake to take him into her lake and drown him so that they could never be parted. She refused because she could not bear to harm him, and eventually his fellow soldiers came and discovered that he had spared her. They killed him in front of her for his treachery and she went mad, killing several soldiers before his closest comrades were able to subdue her. They then took her the kingdom and burned her to death in the town square as an example. When I wander these streams I can picture the tragedy perfectly, and I have been greatly inspired since coming here. This painting reminded me so much of you that I felt you should have it.

Love, your wandering Otou-san.

Ami smiles sadly and sniffles. It's so like her father to send her something like this. He always gets caught up in local legends, then excitedly writes to her, telling her all about them. This one resonates with Ami in a way that makes her feel uncomfortable. She believes it may be the story of another past life. She is unsurprised that her father sensed it too. She has always thought that her father was more sensitive to supernatural phenomenon than the average person. Ami contemplates calling Usagi and telling her what she's remembered, but decides not to. If she told Usagi, Usagi would try to get her and Zoisite together, and Ami didn't want to experience that sort of tragedy again. Ami shakily gets out of bed, carefully picks up the painting and resolutely stows it in the back of her spare closet, under a sheet. Ami closes the closet imagining that she is closing the door on her past, but on the inside, she knows better than to even hope for that.

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Wow. That was long. Sorry for taking so long to upload this. Reviews are nice, they let me know people are actually reading. I'm planning a chapter of Dominos that takes place the day before this, and a Sailor Mars fic that takes place the day before this. I hope to have them done soon.


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